Intentions to Marry, 1882

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840394, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Carole at Archives NZ Wellington, April 16 2025

Page 216

District of Auckland Quarter ending

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
515	22 December 1882	John Blinnan Bull Louisa Wall	John Blinman Bull Louisa Wall 💍 1882/2784	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk Domestic	25 24	Remuera Epsom	17 years 10 years	St Marks Church	82/2403		22 December 1882	V. Archor L. Pritt B.A. Church of England
516	22 December 1882	Hugh Thomas Jones Mary Dammley	Hugh Thomas Jones Mary Barnsley 💍 1882/2783	Bachelor Spinster	Builder Teacher	32 27	Nuo Market Remuera	7 years 26 years	St Marks Church	82/2402		22 December 1882	V. Archor L. Pritt B.A. Church of England
517	23 December 1882	John Henry Cos Mary Ann Higgins	John Henry Coe Mary Anne Higgins 💍 1882/2549	Bachelor Spinster	Bootmaker Boot Machinist	24 23	Auckland Auckland	3 years 8 years	St Patricks Roman Catholic	82/2617		23 December 1882	Rev. Walter MacDonald Roman Catholic
518	23 December 1882	Bronsdel Brindle Mary Browning	Croasdel Brindle Mary Browning 💍 1882/2734 James Hill Mary Browning 💍 1882/3536	Bachelor Spinster	Dealer Domestic	31 25	Howick Howick	26 years 25 years	St Sepulchres Church Higher Pars	82/2603		23 December 1882	Rev. B. Y. Dudley Church of England
519	27 December 1882	Joseph Sylvadre Martha Wilson	Joseph Thorpe Sarah Wilson 💍 1883/1861	Bachelor Widow	Labourer Servant	27 28	Auckland Auckland	5 years 7 years	Office of the Registrar of Marriages Auckland	82/2640		24 December 1882	J. Owen Lord Dep. Reg.
520	27 December 1882	George Braithwaite Walker Julia O'Neill	George Braithwaite Walker Julia O'Neill 💍 1882/2542	Bachelor Spinster	Bushman Servant	23 23	Thames Auckland	6 years 4 days	Roman Catholic Cathedral Auckland	82/2616		24 December 1882	Rev. Walter MacDonald Roman Catholic
521	27 December 1882	Andrew Francis Davidson Margaret McIlquary	Andrew Fraser Davidson Margaret McQuay 💍 1882/2737	Bachelor Spinster	Carpenter Domestic	30 18	Onehunga Onehunga	2 years 16 years	Dwellinghouse of Mr Geo McIlquary	82/2604	George McIlquary Father	27 December 1882	Rev. James Bruce Presbyterian

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1899. More registers are being added almost every week.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).